Best Practice Guidance: Use of Delegated Funding and the Role of the SENCO

Best practice guidance: Use of Delegated Funding and the Role of the SENCO

Introduction

The new SEND Code of Practice came into effect in September 2014. It explains the duties of schools to provide for those with special educational needs (SEN) and disabilities under part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014.

Every school is required to meet the SEN of the children and youngpeople that they support. They must use their best endeavours toensure that the necessary provision is made for any individual who hasSEND and ensure that all children and young people have the opportunity to engage in activitiesalongside their peers. They must also designate a teacher to be thespecial educational needs coordinator (SENCO) and inform parents when they are making special educationalprovision.It is good practice for schools to encourage parental confidence in the quality of their special educational needs provision.

Quality first teaching and a graduated approach are embedded throughout the new code, which states that SEN provision goes beyond the differentiated approaches and learning arrangements normally provided as part of high-quality personalised teaching.

The code calls for the use of appropriate evidence-based interventions, and states that SEN support in schools is based on four types of action: assess, plan, do and review.

This guidance includes details from the Code of Practice as well as best practice gleaned from an audit of the use of delegated SEND funding in mainstream schools.

Quality First Teaching

High quality teaching, differentiated and personalised for individual pupils, is the first stepin responding to pupils/students who have or may have SEN. Additionalintervention and support cannot compensate for a lack of good qualityteaching.

Class teachers are responsible and accountable for the progress anddevelopment of the pupils in their class, including where pupils/students accesssupport from teaching assistants or specialist staff.

Class and subject teachers, supported by the senior leadership team, should make regular assessments of progress for all pupils. Where pupils/students are falling behind or making inadequate progress given their age and starting point they should be given extra support so as to enable their accelerated progress towards clearly identified outcomes.

Special education provision in schools

Special educational provision is educational or training provision that isadditional to or different from that made generally for children or young people of thesame age. This means provision that goes beyond the differentiatedapproaches and learning arrangements normally provided as part ofhigh quality, personalised teaching.

Once a potential special educational need is identified, schools should take action to remove barriers to learning and put effective specialeducational provision in place. This SEN Support should take the formof a four-part cycle – assess, plan, do, review.This is known as the graduated approach. Schools should use the SEN matrix to support robust assessment and planning of needs.

Assess - clear analysis of needs is made based on:

• views of the child/young person and their parents/carers
• teacher assessments and observations
• pupil’s/student’s current attainment
• pupil’s/student’s previous progress and attainment/tracking of progress
• assessments by external agencies if appropriate.

Plan -following assessment, the teacher, SENCO, parent/carers and people agree on a plan of action to include:

• time-limited outcomes
• adjustments, support and interventions to be put into place, including resources. Support and intervention should be provided by staff with sufficient skills and knowledge.

The SENCO has a role in supporting teachers in the effective implementation of provision.

Do - teachers and support staff are made aware of the plan, implement adjustments, support and interventions. Teachers are responsible for:

• differentiating and personalising the curriculum
• delivery of additional and different provision for children and young people with SEN
• linking interventions to classroom teaching.

Review - the quality, effectiveness and impact of provision is evaluated by the review date. This includes seeking the views of, and sharing information with the pupil/student and parents/carers. It is best practice for pupil/student voice to be central to reviews of provision and decision-making.

This cycle may then start again, with an assessment of updated needs of the pupil/student being considered before planning a continuation of or a change to provision.

Where a child continues to make little or no progress, despite appropriate and considered support that is matched to the child’s/young person’s area of need, the schoolshould consider involving specialists, including those from outsideagencies.

Where a pupil/student is identified as having SEN, i.e. the pupil/student has a learning difficulty or disability which calls for additional provision to be put in place, schools should meet parents termly to set clear outcomes and review progress towards them,discuss the activities and support that will help achieve them, andidentify the responsibilities of the parent, the pupil and the school.

It is for schools to determine their own approach to record keeping. Butthe provision made for pupils with SEN and the progress made, should be accurately recorded and kept up to date. The Local Authority recommends the Additional Needs Plan (appendix 2) as an effective way to record the needs, provision and progress of children and students with a range of additional needs including SEND, Social Emotional Mental Health (SEMH) needs and Looked After Children (LAC).Children and young people who are supported in this way should be recorded on SIMS with a ‘K’ code to identify them as being supported.

All schools must publish information on their websites about theimplementation of the school’s policy forpupils with SEN. This information must be updated annually and anychanges to the information occurring during the year must be updatedas soon as possible.

Parents should be involved in all aspects of SEND provision and decision making. Good practice suggests this is most effective when communication with parents is clear and systematic.

School SENCORole

All schools should have a qualifiedteacher designated as SENCO for the school.

The SENCO has an important role to play, with the head teacher and governing body, in determining the strategic development of SENpolicy and the deployment of provision in the school.As such they should have an overview of all the SEN needs to be met within the school and how the SEN budget needs to be allocated.

Best practice suggests that for the SENCO to be most effective in their role, the SENCO should be on the Senior Leadership Team so that they can have input into the school’s wider development and ensure that provision for children and young people with SEND is embedded at every level. The SENCO should know:

• what the school’s delegated SEN budget is
• how much the school hasavailable to spend on provision and have delegated authority to allocate resources from this budget
• the cost of different resources and provisions.

In addition, the SENCO has day-to-day responsibility for the operation of SEN policy and co-ordination of specific provision being made to support individual pupils with SEN, including those who have additional needs and EHC plans.

The SENCO should be aware of the provision in the Local Offer and be able to work with professionals providing a support role to families to ensure that pupils with SEN receive appropriate support and high quality teaching. They should effectively communicate this to parents/carers so that the provision that is available is well understood and parents have confidence and clarity around what support can be accessed for their children and the routes for doing this.

The school should ensure that the SENCO has sufficient time andresources to carry out their role. This should include providing theSENCO with sufficient administrative support and time away fromteaching to enable them to fulfil their responsibilities in a similar way toother important strategic roles within a school.

◆Publication of the SEN

Funding for SEN Support

Schools need to ensure that all resources and provisions are good value for money and that they are making the best use of delegated funds.

Schools, as part of their budget planning, should determine theirapproach to using their resources to support the progress of pupils withSEN. All schools are provided with resources within their overall budget that they should use to support those with additional needs, including children and young people with SEN and disabilities. This delegated funding for SEND is sometimes referred to as the notional SEN budget asthis is not a ring-fenced amount. The expectation is forthe school to provide high quality appropriate support from the wholeof its budget. Schools are expected to fund the first £6,000 of provision for any individual pupil out of their budget share.

In addition to this, schools may receive further funding from theHigh Needs Block in the form of top-up for individual pupils where the expected provision is deemed to be in excess of £6,000. The funding will vary depending on the specific needs of the pupil and will be as a result of an Education Health and Care Plan assessment.

The High Needs Block is part of the overall schools’ budget (it is not county council funding) and is used to fund all placements for children with SEND. In addition to the top-up for mainstream schools, this budget also pays for all special school and specialist facility places and those made in Independent or Non-Maintained Schools (INMS). The amount of funding is fixed by the DfEat a county level and there is no increase allocated for increases in the number of children with EHCPs; any overspend in this budget has to be met from within the overall schools budget. For this reason, it is important that schools work collectively to effectively manage the spend across the board so as to ensure that there is a fair allocation of funding for all children.

SENCO involvement in budget setting

The code of practice identifies key responsibilities of the SENCO. One of the main responsibilities includes advising on thedeployment of the school’s delegated budget and otherresources to meet pupils’ needs effectively. The SENCO, head teacher and governing body should establish a clear picture of the resources that are available to the school and plan to make best use of resources. They should consider their strategic approach to meeting SEN in the context of the total resources available, including any resources targeted at particular groups, such as the pupil premium.

SENCOs need to have access to and a good understanding of the delegated budget in order to be able to plan and deploy resources effectively to meet the needs of all pupils with identified needs.

Effective deployment of resources

The Senior Leadership Team, including the SENCO, need toalign their provision mapping and associated costs to ensure they have a good understandingof, and effective,record keeping systems for how much is being spent on SEND provision. Good practice suggests that the use of detailed spreadsheets helpsto map provision made under SEN support. Spreadsheets which include information such as type of provision, pupils/students receiving additional support, progress made, time periods, staffing and associated costs also serve as evidence to parents of the additional support being provided.

The use of additional adult support whether in the form of in-class support or delivering specific interventions outside of the classroom needs to be carefully targeted to meet the identified needs of children in the most efficient and economic manner. Creative ways of using this additional resource which match staff skill sets to SEN need to be considered. It is key that any adult support builds resilience and independence in the pupil/student as well as addressing their barrier to learning.Evidence suggests that pupils who become dependent on 1:1 support from an additional adult in the classroom do less well than those pupils who share support as and when it is needed and who are encouraged to engage more actively with all the learning opportunities in the classroom.

In considering implementing specific provision SENCO’s should be clear about the cost of the provision, whether there is a strong evidence base around progress and impact, and whether it constitutes good value for money.

Appendix 1 – SENCO Self-Evaluation Checklist

Appendix 2 – Additional Needs Plan